SILLQUID - Can a Microwave Quick Tool Predict Quality and Origin of Herring

SILLQUID - Can a Microwave Quick Tool Predict Quality and Origin of Herring

Publisert 25.02.2010

Sist oppdatert 20.05.2011

There is a great need within the fish industry for quick tools to measure origin, fat content and general quality right after landing. In SILLQUID, the fast and non-destructive method MWspectroscopy, developed in two recent EU-projects, was tested for prediction of origin, compositional and quality parameters of a unique herring material collected and analyzed during NI-project 02106. Through participation of three pelagic companies, the MW-tool was also tested during industrial production of herring and mackerel fillets.

The most important result from this project has been the promising ability of the MW-tool to predict fat content of pelagic fish, at least up to fat levels of 18% (herring) or 25% (mackerel). Most of the information in the MW-spectra about fat content was located either in the “rising edge” of the curve, or at the maximum of the curves.There was also a week correlation to season of catch, storage time in refrigerated sea water (RSW)-tanks, pre-freezing and storage time in a salt brine. The ccorrelation to all other studied biological and chemical/physical parameters has been low.

We believe that the results from the industrial trials would have been even more clear if the collected material had had a wider spread of fat content, if the industrial partners would have had the possibility to practice more on how to carry out the measurements, and if the newest version of the MW-tool would have come in earlier in the project. An important practical outcome has been the need to communicate instructions for the MW-tool in a very clear way, preferably with pictures.